Scene Last Night: Henry Cornell, Robert Reffkin, Fred Armisen

Vanessa Cornell and her husband, Henry Cornell, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and chairman of Citizens Committee for New York City. Photographer: Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Henry Cornell, a partner at Goldman
Sachs Group Inc., boiled down the purpose of last night’s
gathering.

“We support helping neighborhoods, one block at a time,”
Cornell said as he kicked off the annual gala for the Citizens
Committee for New York City, which he has served as chairman for
nine years.

Among the 500 guests at Gotham Hall were Kenneth Rosh, a
partner at Fried Frank, who counts Goldman Sachs as a client,
Rodge Cohen, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, musician Paul
Simon and Robert Reffkin, a vice president at Goldman Sachs.
Reffkin is also a board member of Citizens Committee. The event
raised $1.2 million, including $65,000 in text pledges.

The organization gives grants to block associations,
community gardens and other small community groups throughout
New York City. According to a study by Deloitte & Touche LLP, 80
percent of these groups would have nowhere else to go for
funding, “because they’re too small and they’re not part of the
philanthropic mainstream,” said Peter Kostmayer, chief
executive officer of Citizens Committee.

Among last year’s 231 grant recipients: the Inwood Canoe
Club, the Young Gents Society of East New York and the P.S. 149
PTA in Jackson Heights.

Peeks’ Eye Exams

The gala honored several individuals.

Jeff Peek, vice chairman of investment banking at Barclays
Capital Inc., and his wife, Liz Peek, a writer and former head
of the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts,
have funded eye exams for third graders and the MillionTreesNYC
initiative.

Bob Humber started the M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden on
the Lower East Side. He used his first Citizens Committee grant
to buy noisemakers to keep drug dealers out.

Lorne and Alice Michaels, in addition to making us laugh
with “Saturday Night Live”, which Lorne created, and “Late Night
with Jimmy Fallon,” which Alice has produced, support such
nonprofits as the Robin Hood Foundation and the American Museum
of Natural History.

Fred Armisen, of “Saturday Night Live” and IFC’s
“Portlandia,” described how Lorne creates a sense of community
in the workplace.

“He does it very physically,” Armisen said, as waiters
put down plates of beef and risotto. “Whenever we have pitch
meetings, it’s in his tiny, cramped office.”

Bank of America’s New York City market president, Jeff
Barker, received the Corporate Citizen Award. The bank funds
Citizens Committee Green Grants.

Favorite Vegetable

Barker’s presenter was 11-year-old Jada Nicole Young, who
tends the Padre Plaza Success community garden in the Mott Haven
section of the Bronx, where she likes to grow broccoli, her
favorite vegetable.

“Bank of America does lots of good things for New Yorkers
that people don’t even know about,” Young said at the lectern.

“I think we’ve found the next Bank of America
spokesperson,” Barker replied.

Barker has some work to do yet: Jada’s college savings
account is at Citibank, said her dad, Michael Young, a
carpenter. “But we could always use another.”

(Amanda Gordon is a writer and photographer for Muse, the
arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. Any opinions
expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer on this story:
Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net or on
Twitter at @amandagordon.